The Curve of the Neck

That street taco was a bad idea, I knew it,

the grease slick, the heat just wrong.

My stomach lurched, a cold, hard knot,

and it took me back to that bathroom, hot

and damp, the smell of cheap hairspray,

and something else, something metallic, gray.

Her shoulders shook, her spine a fragile arc,

and I was there, a clumsy, nervous park

for her forehead, my fingers tangled deep

in all that hair, a promise I would keep.

Wet strands, cool porcelain, the sound of it,

the body's sudden, violent, losing fit.

I didn't know what else to do, just held her there,

a shield, a wall, against the stale, raw air.

My own nausea, a pale, faint thing,

compared to hers, that raw, gut-wrenching spring.

And when it stopped, she leaned back, worn and pale,

a kind of innocence behind the veil

of sweat and tears. I wiped her chin,

a shared humiliation, starting from within.